In reading through my pages, there are a lot of people I mention and I've become concerned that I'm not giving you an explanation of who these people are, how they fit here, and how they fit with each other. This page should help.

Me

I'm a character in my own life, as an instructor in my freshman year of college told me. I, unlike other characters, am spoiled by having my own page all to myself.

Evan

I met him through a personal ad, and he's sort of taken over that spot in my life reserved for one special person. He's a bassoonist and engineer, travels quite a bit, can cook anything, and he and I agree about most things, which is, in the end, about as good as you can hope for.

My family

• My father, born in 1932 in Wisconsin, died in 1995 along with my mother. Started out working for the University of Maryland and moved us to Minnesota in 1971. Worked most of his later life for the University of Minnesota, teaching. Photographed anything that moved and a lot of things that didn't. Knew how to fix everything in the world.
• My mother, born in 1933, was a researcher at Minnesota, too. Graduated magna from Wisconsin and knew lots of things I'll never know. They met at Wisconsin and got married a few years later.
• Fargo, my year-old kitten I adopted in 1997. He has his own page.
• My parents' cat, Margie, who was the same age as me until she died when I was 19 of kidney problems.
• Grandpa Lawrence, tyrant, died when I was very young and I barely remember him, partly because my grandmother always invoked his name when arguing with my father about this or that. He became sort of a catch-word for some unknown future retribution, and after she died a couple of years later neither of their names were mentioned any longer by my parents.
• My father's oldest sister, Aunt Grace, died in 1993, killed by food after she moved to Arkansas. Huge, overbearing woman that I never much liked and who scared me a little during most of my childhood.
• Aunt Joan, my father's younger sister, lives out in Oregon somewhere, and I haven't heard from her in over a year. Calm, patient but sometimes vague to the point of catatonia.
• Uncle David - lives in Milwaukee, my father's younger brother. Haven't talked with him in a while. My mother's favorite brother-in-law. Is sick a lot, partly due to his late wife Elaine's incredible smoking habit, but is funny and used to tell good stories.
• Aunt Mary - my mother's remaining sister, in a nursing home in Los Angeles and I haven't seen her since high school. I don't remember much about her.

The Quintet

• Maureen - organized the quintet. Is a senior engineering major and flute minor at Northwestern, met Annike because she was her accompanist, and somehow got in touch with me that way, originally from Massachusetts but looks like she could be from anywhere, will be staying here for graduate school.
• Daniel - now Maureen's main squeeze, is a hornist and is a candidate for a master's in musicology. He's from California and looks it. Used to have a girlfriend named Elsa, until they sort of split up, and she stayed in California.
• Mary-Therese - clarinetist, from somewhere called Hull, in Canada near Ottawa. Really terse, dry sense of humor and one of the most observant people I know, though she doesn't let many people make many observations about her.
• Jenny - bassoonist, from Hanover, Pennsylvania, a senior bassoon major. Is currently engaged to be married to a Penn State grad named Joel and pretty much a nervous wreck as a result. Funny, hyperactive, and very, very small. Dark hair, blue eyes, and energetic.

People I know here

• Will and Alice - they host some of the best parties and are good, decent people. They have a wide circle of friends which I find that I've joined without even realizing it.

People I used to work with

• Marcy, a woman who used to work at the University of Chicago with Alice (see above) and now works doing graphics and other things for a suburban Chicago newspaper. Likes cooking all kinds of things and never loses touch with anyone. She still has lunch with people she knew in grade school.
• Phil - ad manager for the paper, works with Marcy, smokes when he gets nervous and drives like crazy
• Annike - Phil's girlfriend, german, tall, blonde, pianist, interesting to talk to and a magnet for seedy guys whom she ignores
• Tasha - works in the office, hangs out with everyone and has really great hair
• Sean - just started at the paper, writing & editing, would like to date Tasha but never asks her. Looks on Marcy as his big sister, which Marcy hates.

People I work with now

• Mark, an electronics engineer, just got married and his wife works about 28 hours a day. He hates to go out to places where there's a DJ because he already knows too much about the songs, and is a fanatic at playing video games and Trivial Pursuit.
• Elaine, another engineer, single and looking really hard, who I get along with pretty well in spite of the fact we're totally different people. Elaine's grandmother sold me the Mercedes-Benz and is cool. She's always talking about the jobs she never interviews for. Elaine seems to spend every other week picking up her brother or dropping him off after he's trashed yet another of his cars.

People from long ago: the high school years:

• James, the clarinetist. He stopped playing after college and I haven't heard anything about him in at least five years. He and all these other people were part of a tight-knit group of people I hung out with in high school and with whom I've now completely lost touch.
• Terri, the singer, who was tiny where I was a giant, energetic where I was passive, intense where I was moderate. She got married in her second year at the University of Wisconsin and never finished.
• Doug and Dan, who lived for marching band and seemingly knew every chemistry fact there was to know. I don't know what happened to them after high school.
• Molly, a bassoonist who moved away partway through senior year, left a psychological hole no one else filled. She was the femme fatale of the group and often dated "other guys" but was always strictly friends with the guys in our circle. One Friday night when I gave him a ride home after a concert, James once confided in me a terrible crush on Molly, and I understood why. He was like a puppy and was not the same after she left. Last I heard, Molly was in graduate school in New York somewhere.
• Lynette, who was my second oboist all during high school, also gave up playing after she went off to school.
• Derrick, the cellist, who had these blue eyes like the Hope diamond -- I had a terrible crush on him which I, too, never dared speak -- went away to Virginia and later to Europe. He had hard times after college and apparently got into drugs for a while.
• Chris, a really good friend I had who went to pieces after her parents split up and eventually moved to Milwaukee. She really knew how to tell ghost stories when we were little.

People from long ago: the college and grad school years:

• Audrey - roommate for one year, but friends for several years. She was from California, and though we were a lot different, we got along like the sisters neither of us had. Her only brother died of AIDS and her parents didn't handle it well.
• Lisa - roommate one other year, wildly extroverted. After graduation she got a job, got married, put her new husband through dental school, then got dumped. She calls me about once a year and it's sometimes difficult to talk to her because she's so hyper and depressed at the same time.
• Seth - dated him for too long, put up with too much abuse, and spent too much time doubting myself. Eventually left me for some woman in New York. We used to travel a lot, mostly in my car because it ran. He liked downhill skiing, which I hated. He liked talking about his parents and all of his family's money, which I hated.
• Jonathan - I dated him for a while four years ago and while he wasn't obnoxious, he was a total mama's-boy and I could never get past that. Or his mama.